How Trump Is Killing The Two State Solution - And Giving Hamas Power

The Israelis and Palestinians are reaching an inflection point. The
Oslo Accords, which charted a path forward to a two-state solution,
effectively collapsed at the end of John Kerry’s intensive
negotiations during the Obama Administration.

There is wide
speculation that the Trump Administration will defund the United
Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near
East in the West Bank and unilaterally re-define who qualifies
for refugee status to those Palestinians who were actually displaced
between 1948 and 1967.

Disruption of political sclerosis can
invigorate positive change, which is desperately needed in a region
that has witnessed three wars in Gaza in the last decade. But the
Trump Plan represents real long-term danger for stability and security
in the Levant.

Disengagement Redux Post Jerusalem

The U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem did not destabilize the broader
Middle East as many analysts warned it would. But the decision has
marginalized the U.S. as a fair broker between parties and set a
trajectory for U.S. engagement that is even more worrisome.

The White House’s announcement last week that it would cut $200 million in aid to
the Palestinians creates a political vacuum which favors Hamas and
other rejectionists.

During the Gaza disengagement in 2005 and in the
immediate aftermath of the Hamas victory in the 2006 Palestinian
Legislative Council elections, the U.S. and Israel asserted economic
pressure to yield political change. The goal was to squeeze Hamas
until it moderated or failed. Instead, Hamas consolidated political
and economic power by completely overwhelming traditional Palestinian
influencers — the business community, traders, the professional class and
civil society. Ironically, Hamas is now the centrist power in Gaza,
only challenged by Islamic Jihad and a nascent ISIS.

At the same time, in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the U.S. and
Israel worked with the Palestinian private sector under the theory
that economic engagement and private sector trade would yield
political change.

By simply opening Jenin to export trade in the
northern West Bank, U.S. assistance transformed the region.
Robust private sector trade created economic opportunities for small
and medium sized businesses, reduced unemployment, enhanced local
governing structures, improved basic services and stabilized
security.

In withdrawing $200 million from Gaza and the West Bank
with expiring fiscal year 2017 funds, the White House is turning its back
on the Palestinian people, increasing security risks to Israel,
undermining the private sector on both sides of the Green Line and
limiting America’s ability to alleviate other friction points between the
parties.

The result is that Hamas has more room to consolidate power,
particularly against potential moderate actors.

History has
demonstrated that a sustained economic embargo on Hamas over the past
thirteen years has not restrained its ability to develop and launch
increasingly more sophisticated rockets at Israel. As U.S. NGOs in
Gaza begin to lay off hundreds of staff and close down operations, the
Trump Administration has effectively vacated American influence in one
of the most contested, complicated crises on earth.

Whither the Palestinian Authority?

In a post-Oslo world, the Palestinian Authority has lost
legitimacy and purpose. Historically, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
would not accept security assistance independent of economic
assistance. The PA would not be the outsourced security services of
the Israeli Defense Forces; instead, it sought to build a state
which rested on three pillars: governance, economic opportunity and
security.

With no political horizon and reduced economic opportunity,
the PA is devolving into the IDF’s gendarmerie on the streets of
Ramallah, Hebron and Nablus.

It is too early to tell if the PA Prime
Minister Hamdallah will accept the Trump Administration’s continued
security assistance in the light of aid cuts and the U.S. Embassy’s
move to Jerusalem, but there is a real risk that security cooperation
between the Israelis and Palestinians will begin to wind down. The stress on the PA increases dramatically as the White House
considers defunding UNRWA in the West Bank.

Without question, UNRWA
is in dire need of reform. In many ways, continued welfare payments,
including to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan, subsidize
dysfunction and failure.

But UNRWA also provides education, health and social
services in the West Bank. An immediate shutdown of UNRWA operations
in the West Bank will shift financial responsibility for these
services and entitlements to the PA, an additional burden the
fiscally-strapped PA simply cannot afford.

The weight of the fallout
within Palestinian political circles of the U.S. Embassy’s move to
Jerusalem, the withdrawal of U.S. assistance to the Palestinian
people and the transfer of UNRWA entitlement payments for close to
one million people in the West Bank may very well lead to the collapse
of the PA.

Even if the PA struggles through the financial challenges,
Palestinian domestic pressure on the PA may cause it to begin
dismantling operations.

In a PA collapse, Palestinians would likely
transfer the health system, then education and finally security to
Israel — or worse, Hamas — over the next year to 18 months. If the
burden falls on the Israeli taxpayers, they will not only be required
to dig a little deeper to pay for Palestinian education and health
care systems in Jenin, Qalqilya and Hebron, but they should be
prepared to send their sons and daughters to Area A, the heart of
Palestinian controlled territory.

Though skeptics may consider a Hamas
replacement of the PA as highly unlikely, history has shown unlikely
events happen — the 2006 election of Hamas, the 2012 election of the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and, finally, the 2016 election of
President Trump.

Currently, the international community subsidizes the post Oslo status
quo, which by all accounts is failing. With no political horizon and
an effective disengagement by the White House, the U.S. is vacating
leadership and influence, thus precipitating a historic disruption of
monumental consequence.

For decades, the Israelis and Palestinians
have been shielded from the real costs of their policy decisions.
Now, this latest White House policy is effectively taking the
two-state solution off the negotiating table. With that, the Israelis
and Palestinians will now be brought closer to dancing on the razor’s
edge.

Dave Harden is the Managing Director of the Georgetown Strategy Group,
former USAID Assistant Administrator, and one of the longest serving
American diplomats in Israel who led the assistance mission to the
West Bank and Gaza for more than a decade.

This story "How Trump Is Killing The Two State Solution - And Giving Hamas Power" was written by Dave Harden.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

Join thousands of readers and give today to help fund the Forward’s reliable reporting, intelligent analysis, and a Jewish voice you can trust on news, culture, lifestyle and opinion. Thank you for making a generous donation now.

Tagged as:

Author

Your Comments

The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community.
All readers can browse the comments, and all Forward subscribers can add to the conversation. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, The Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not and will be deleted. Egregious commenters or repeat offenders will be banned from commenting. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, our spam filter prevents most links and certain key words from being posted and the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.